1 Discussion Questions for Women in Film-Cleveland Gathering Thursday, October 24, 2019:

Focal Film: Meet Me in St. Louis (1944; U.S.; Screenplay by Irving Brecher & Fred F. Finklehoffe, based on a novel by Sally Benson; Cinematography by George J. Folsey; Musical score composed and arranged by an experienced team of MGM employees--Conrad Salinger, George Stoll, , Calvin Jackson, and Lenny Hayton; Songs—A combination of older tunes (e.g., “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis,” “Under the Bamboo Tree”) and original songs for the film, written by Hugh Martin and (e.g., “,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”); Directed by Vincente Minnelli; Produced by )

In Meet Me in St. Louis, the primary characters are:

*Esther Smith, a young woman in 1903 St. Louis () *"Tootie" Smith, her little sister (Margaret O’Brien) *Anna Smith, the mother of the family (Mary Astor) *Alonzo Smith, the father of the family, who is planning to accept a new job in New York City (Leon Ames) *Rose Smith, Esther’s older sister, who is hoping for a marriage proposal (Lucille Bremer) *John Truett, literally the boy next door, whom Esther pursues romantically (Tom Drake) *Katie the maid (Marjorie Main) *Grandpa (Harry Davenport) *Alonzo "Lon" Smith Jr., Esther’s older brother (Henry H. Daniels Jr.)

Introductory notes:

The film was based on Sally Benson’s series of autobiographical short stories titled 5135 Kensington, which were originally published in The New Yorker in 1941-42. The story line is set in St. Louis, Missouri, from summer of 1903 through spring of 1904, coinciding with the construction of the St. Louis World’s Fair (the Louisiana Purchase Exposition). Over four seasons, the story line follows the lives the Smith family, including the banker father, the mother, one son, and four daughters. The film was produced by MGM, specifically within the Freed Unit headed by Arthur Freed. It is considered one of the great classic American musicals.

Discussion questions:

AS A FILM DIRECTED BY AN AUTEUR

1. This film was directed by Vincente Minnelli, one of the great directors of 20th century film musicals (e.g., The Pirate, 1948; An American in Paris, 1951; Gigi, 1958). Further, in this film he was directing the woman who would become his first wife—Judy Garland. Many critics and scholars have commented on how “luminous” Judy looks in this film, and they tend to credit Minnelli’s growing love for her. To what extent has Minnelli therefore produced a “star vehicle,” hinging primarily on the talents of Judy Garland? To what extent is this, rather, a Minnelli film?

2. In Meet Me in St. Louis (MMISL), Minnelli has produced an example of a classic “integrated musical,” in which songs are presented in operatic fashion—that is, the instrumental music often comes from thin air,

2 and the audience must be willing to believe that people will sing and dance wherever and whenever they please. (Think, for example, the Trolley Song number.) Thus, the musical numbers are fully “integrated” into the narrative story line. Beth Genne, in a 1983 Art Journal article, shows how the opening sequence of MMISL uses the integrated number “Meet Me in St. Louis” as an establishing sequence--to establish the location (the family house) and to introduce key characters in the film. In this sequence, the song “travels” across various family members. What other musical numbers in the film are integrated? Are there any that are not?

3. Scott Higgins, in a 1998 article in the journal Style, analyzes the use of color by Minnelli in MMISL. Minnelli was a set designer on Broadway and a color consultant to nightclubs in New York before he moved to Hollywood, and he continued to be a “master of the decorative image” (Johnson, 1958) as a director of films. About MMISL, Higgins says, “the film exhibits an innovative confidence in the way it moves color toward the center of its stylistic system…under Minnelli’s direction, Technicolor becomes a key contributor to the moment by moment shaping of visual information, making images striking, comprehensible, and affecting.” Throughout the film, watch for the use of bright, saturated colors, the use of natural, harmonious colors, and the use of warmer shades. Do the colors match the mood or dramatic tone of the narrative at different points in the film? Do they help designate the four seasons shown in the film?

AS A VEHICLE FOR JUDY GARLAND

4. To follow up on question #1, pay close attention to Judy Garland’s presence in the film. Many critics have said that she was at the height of her performance abilities in this film, after a childhood fraught with unrealistic pressures to perform (including her forced taking of uppers and downers when she was still a minor) and before her eventual downward slide into depression and drugs. In what ways does her performance as Esther give us a truly unique character that only Judy could deliver? And in what ways might her Esther create a universal character for all to identify with?

5. Songwriter Hugh Martin knew that Judy Garland was to star in the film, and so he wrote and adapted songs specifically for her style and vocal range (Christman, 2017). For example, the venerable “Skip to My Lou,” a folk tune dating from at least the early 1800s, was given a jazzy adaptation to foreground Judy’s particular talents. Pay attention to Judy’s solo songs, and consider how Martin was working with her voice. What do you notice?

AS A REPRESENTATION OF THE MUSICAL FILM GENRE

6. Meet Me in St. Louis was produced within MGM’s “Freed Unit,” the legendary production section headed by lyricist/producer Arthur Freed. As such, it demonstrates some of the best that mid-century Hollywood could produce. What elements do you notice that make this film a quintessential MGM musical, and what elements set it apart?

7. David Neumeyer, in a journal article titled “Merging Genres in the 1940s: The Musical and the Dramatic Feature Film,” makes the argument that in the early 1940s, genres had begun to merge, what would later be called genre hybrids. (Today, most current films are seen as some type of genre hybrid.) Focusing on MMISL, Neumeyer notes, “the music in certain scenes in Meet Me in St. Louis, most notably the Halloween sequence, is scored more like a dramatic feature than a musical of the 1930s.” Neumeyer actually asks the

3 viewer to question whether MMISL is a classical musical: “Is Meet Me in St. Louis a dramatic feature film, perhaps a women's film, domestic melodrama, or even--considering Tootie's penchant for the macabre--a female gothic?” Your thoughts?

AS A REPRESENTATION OF “HOME”—INCLUDING THE ROLES OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN

8. This film presents a household and a world dominated by women. Serafina Bathrick, in a journal article called “The Past as Future: Family and the American Home in Meet Me in St. Louis,” notes that with the exception of the grandfather, the men in the film are not active members of the household collective. During each of the four seasons presented, the women have important roles, but these are social maintenance, rather than chores/productive work. Bathrick says: “The singing and the parties--all the female-generated courting games that constitute this family love story—diminish and overshadow the question of women's work.” How do you think the various female characters represent the roles of women in the family? Do you think the fact that the film was produced during WWII, when women were important to the homefront workforce, makes for enhanced roles for women? Or not?

9. Edward Reccia (1998) has argued that a set of American movies made during the Golden Age of Hollywood made a point of setting their stories in the Midwest—e.g., State Fair (1945), Oklahoma! (1955), The Music Man (1962)…and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). All presented a “simple goodness” of “family values” that might be cynically interpreted as sappy or naïve. But Reccia says that these films present “a positive foil against the encroaching manipulation, materialism, and amorality of the modem age.” How do you feel about MMISL in terms of the brand of family values it presents?

10. Does this film pass the Bechdel test? The Bechdel test is a pop-culture analysis of the representation of women in film that has been gaining popularity in recent years. (There was a Bechdel Film Festival in Akron in the spring of 2019.) According to Wikipedia, the Bechdel test, also known as the Bechdel–Wallace test, asks whether a work features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. How does MMISL stack up?

AS A WARTIME FILM, SHOWING PEOPLE “WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR”

11. Even those of us who are very familiar with the role played by Hollywood movies in promoting the “homefront” during WWII tend to forget that MMISL was among these films, produced at the height of the War. From the 1976 journal article by Serafina Bathrick: “There is no question that the film's appearance at Christmas time six months before the armistice, contributed poignantly to its meaning for an American audience. ‘Someday we all will be together, if the fates allow’--the songs, the sentiments, the affirmation of family unity and love could not have touched a more optimistic but fearful audience.” Do you think the film promotes a type of idealistic homefront that represents what “our boys are fighting for?

12. Although there are obviously no direct references to WWII (or even any earlier war), certain themes in the film seem to relate to the general U.S. psyche and anxiety of the time. Vincent Casaregola (2013), in a book chapter improbably titled “See St. Louis and Die: Wartime and the Morbid Child Psychology of Meet Me in St. Louis,” focuses on the young Tootie character, noting “throughout the film she fantasizes about death and enacts numerous morbid rituals realted to death and dying.” What are some examples of this “morbid child” portrayal?

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13. MMISL was shot on the old (now gone) MGM backlot, in the section once called “St. Louis Street.” The fronts of the eight houses on that street were constructed specifically for MMISL, at a cost of nearly a quarter million dollars (nearly $4 million in today’s dollars). Each house was given a name, and each had its own “personality and character as dictated by Minnelli” (Bingen, Sylvester, & Troyan, 2011). This standing external set went on to provide a locational “home” for at least 40 different films and TV series, including In the Good Old Summertime (1949), Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), The Twilight Zone (1959), and The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964), before its destruction in 1972. To what extent do you think the beautiful, detailed street set contributes to a sense of a homefront location that we may all long to return to?

Discussion questions by Kim Neuendorf, Ph.D.: [email protected] Archive of Women in Film-Cleveland discussion questions: http://academic.csuohio.edu/kneuendorf/womeninfilm v. 10/18/19